Glee Cake

My daughter is absolutely mad about Glee and asked me to make her a Glee birthday cake. She actually helped to design her cake but left me to work out how to do it. To create the stage at the back I sliced the cake into three layers, then halved the top layer and put the halves on top of each other to make the back section of cake x4 layers tall, the front section just two layers. As in the series, we added gold stars as the character Rachel always puts a gold star after her name. The five main girls in the show are dressed like the WMHS cheerios, each holding a letter to spell my daughter's name. She even stressed which order to seat them and how they should have their hair done. Emily helped to brush colour over the floorboards of the stage and add the red curtain around the back. There was a lot of modelling on the characters but it was fun to see it all come together.

50th Birthday Cake

This is a 9" hexagonal sponge, jam and butter cream cake I made for my friend, whose sister was about to celebrate her 50th birthday. I used a daisy rolling pin to pattern the icing around the cake board, covering the joins with flowers made from Mexican paste. I dusted over it with snowflake lustre powder to make the embossed daisy pattern stand out more. I also made the numbers for the 50 from white mexican paste, attached them to wires and covered them with white disco hologram powder. The numbers, ribbon loops, carnations, roses and gems are all in a flower pick. I piped a snail trail around the base of the cake before tying on the organza ribbon.

21st Birthday Cake

This is a 10" sponge cake with jam and butter cream fillings. I was asked to model Sophie on the cake but her Mum also requested ribbon, flowers, a sparkly 21 sign and certain items around the cake. The birthday girl is also a mother and drives, so I included a set of car keys with a "best Mum" keyring attached. The chosen colour scheme was peaches and cream although I had to model some items in contrasting colours otherwise they wouldn't stand out. The board itself is iced in soft peach then rolled over with a silk pin to add texture. I had a photograph of Sophie to follow so I hope she can see some resemblance and finds it flattering. The champagne bottle candle was a finishing touch to the final cake, which they can light at the celebration party.

50th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my eldest brother's 50th . It was hard to think of what to put on it because he has quite a few hobbies so in the end I decided to make a hexagonal cake and show his life from birth through each decade until the present day. You cannot see one of the sides from these two images but one side shows him in a love heart with his wife Jackie. It ends with him singing as he is a member of his local male voice choir. At first I modelled all the heads, some of them only thin as they were to be attached to the sides with royal icing. The most time consuming was all the modelling. I used a circle of greaseproof paper positioned on the top as a guide when I was putting the lettering around the top. The stars and 50 are made from Mexican paste and allowed to harden on the wires before inserting them into the flower pick. I didn't want to model anything too delicate as we were driving to East Midlands with it and needed it to arrive intact. We had a firework candle at the party, but were asked to light it outside, (fire and safety regulationsand and all that!) I didn't get to eat a piece as we had a long drive back, but my brother and his family assured me it tasted delicious.

Liqourice allsorts cake

I made this 8" sponge cake for my son's 13th birthday. As his favourite sweets are liqourice allsorts I decided to incorporate them into a design for his birthday cake. The sweets were easily stuck onto the ends of white wires inserted into a flower pick in the centre of the cake,together with the number 13 in yellow Mexican Paste. The other allsorts are stuck on with softened sugar paste. This is a really simple cake to make but extremely colourful, and could be adapted for other children/people using their favourite sweets.ie. Maltesers or wine gums. I added his name in black Mexican paste using the FMM Funky letters cutters. To finish it I attached a black Happy Birthday ribbon around the square board. All the family are enjoying the cake, but only Owen gets to eat the liqourice allsorts!

Simple Birthday cake

This is an 8" square sponge cake I made recently for a friend of the family. It was his 82nd Birthday and I wanted to make a simple but elegant cake just to say Happy Birthday. I made the swags with my sugar craft gun then made the icing bows to place over the joins where the swags met. Using Royal Icing coloured blue I piped four small dots down from each bow. Royal icing was also used for piping the shell trail around the base of the cake and the icing on the board itself is crimped at the edges. I wanted it to be quite traditional but obviously didn't want to include flowers on a cake for a man. Although you cannot see it clearly in this photograph there is a sparkly blue ribbon around the cake board.

40th Birthday Cake

This is a 9" square cake with jam and butter cream. I was asked to use a lilac and white colour scheme and to add a lilac ribbon around the cake itself. I used a photograph that was emailed to me to help with modelling the lady's family sitting on the front edge of the cake. I wanted to include the number 40 somewhere so I made the numbers from Mexican Paste covered with disco white hologram and left them to harden. When I was putting the children onto the cake I placed the numbers on their laps to look as if they were holding them up. I piped a shell trail around the base of the cake and added flowers using shades of lilac to finish the design.

First Birthday cake

This is a number one cake for a girl's first birthday. I used a Wilton tin which has a nice shape and makes quite a large cake. This cake was chocolate with chocolate butter cream in the middle. I was asked to do a pink and white colour scheme and to include pink hearts and a pink rabbit. As you can see I crimped around the edge of the board and make an icing rope in pink to go between the cake and board. The idea for the rabbit came from a Maisie Parish book where it showed how to make brown rabbits to go on an Easter cake but I made mine in just pink and white and added a small pick containing hearts on wires dusted with Raspberry shimmer, disco white hologram and snowflake lustre, at the side of it to complement the hearts around the cake and board.

Cow Cake

It was nice to be asked to make this cake because it was good fun. I looked at some ideas on google images and we decided to go for this design. This is a 9" sponge with just butter cream because the birthday girl didn't like jam. I used a new nailbrush to create the texture on the green icing before adding a few icing blossom flowers. I modelled the cow's head from white and pink icing, using a ball tool to create the nostrils and to make indents for the eyes. I modelled the udders by hand from a ball of pink icing then rolled the edges thinner using a cel stick. Finally I used a circle cutter to complete the udders and stuck in onto the front edge of the cake using sugar glue. All the legs were quite simple to make, leaving the belly plain for the message. I needed short lengths of raw spaghetti to help attach the ears and supported them with sponge until they had hardened. All the black markings were just roughly shaped by hand then I chose a spotty back and white ribbon which was the finishing touch.